2010-11 NHL Playoff Thread: HOUSE RULES: ENGAGED

[Mytiwar]

Our 4th line is outstanding for a 4th line

So a buncha herp derps flexing their muscles using their sticks as clubs not knowing how to control a puck or score a goal is what passes for an outstanding 4th line nowadays?
Let's just make a team with Laraque's and Tie Domi's, see how good they are at hackey

[Ivaden]

So much mayad.

[aurik]

Thought it was kinda funny that McQuaid's Flying Elbow got him injured.

[Callisto]

Lotta folks learning how to do that trick nowadays, wonder how long before we see it in an actual NHL game.

I see the nine year olds do that shit all the time lol

[Mytiwar]

So much mayad.

Don't get me wrong, I think they have great def even if Thomas looks lucky on most plays he has to be good because luck alone wouldn't win him all these games. And they have a pretty decent first 2 lines even though they haven't been as productive as in the reg. season.

But the 4th line, really? rofl

[vagus]

Fuckin Election owning me last 2 days. Anyways some teams in trouble this 2nd round. How to solve the puzzle that is Renne. Run him maybe. Lol.

[Sepukku]

Its kinda nice seeing every remaining Penguins rival in 0-2 holes At least if we can't win it, I hope the Lightning/Bruins/Canucks/Predators win it and to a middle ground before you get to the Red Wings/Capitals/Flyers, I hope the Sharks win it!!

[Bregor]

Its kinda nice seeing every remaining Penguins rival in 0-2 holes At least if we can't win it, I hope the Lightning/Bruins/Canucks/Predators win it and to a middle ground before you get to the Red Wings/Capitals/Flyers, I hope the Sharks win it!!

I secretly think Pittsburgh blew that 3-1 lead to Tampa just to troll the fuck out of the Caps.

GAME THREE TONIGHT WE STILL HAVE A MATHEMATICAL CHANCE TO WIN THE SERIES AMIRITE

ANGRY

BELIEVE

[Melena]

Go Sharks. Niemi really seems to be repeating last year. Mediocre first round, then so far amazing in round two. Hope to god he keeps it up. Van/Nash vs SJ Western Finals will be amazing.

[Thoronas]

Fun fact I did not know about Nashville, they have not scored a power play goal on Vancouver all season. Can't wait to see how they play in their own barn.

[Judai]

Probably going to miss the start of Game 3 tonight, BDay dinner for my Dad, going early so we can try to catch the game but will probably miss the first period. Hopefully by the time I get back to watch the Caps will have turned their game around. Starting to think the hockey gods are against them, at least 3 goals against them this postseason have been random bounces off defenders.

[Ace-o-fire]

Tuesday, 05.03.2011 / 2:44 PM / News
By Michael Caples - Detroit Red Wings Staff Writer
DETROIT – The Sharks have tried to rattle the Red Wings goalie in this series. And as one famed Canadian analyst sees it, San Jose players have gone to despicable lengths to disrespect Jimmy Howard.

But Howard isn’t going to allow the Sharks, nor the media attention, to become a distraction when the Western Conference semifinals series resumes with Wednesday’s Game 3 at Joe Louis Arena.

“They’re just trying to get under my skin,” Howard said. “I don’t care. They can come in and pitchfork me, snow-shower me. I don’t care.”

Joe Pavelski and Joe Thornton are just two Sharks who have given snow-showers to Howard in front of the Wings’ net during Games 1 and 2 at HP Pavilion.

Opposing players have always taken the liberty of covering goalies – most of the time the goalie is in a prone position, covering up a loose puck in the crease – with ice shavings by coming to a hard stop. The cascading snow gets in the goalie’s mask and down his jersey making for an uncomfortable chilly feeling.

Even though such actions are not a punishable offense, by rule, CBC’s Don Cherry calls the Sharks’ tactics, “The ultimate distain.”

“If you ever did it on Grant Fuhr, if you ever did it on Billy Smith, if you ever did it on Gerry Cheevers, you would not finish the game,” continued Cherry, on last Saturday’s “Coach’s Corner” first-intermission segment. “Absolutely ridiculous that you do that. In the old days you would not finish the game if you did that.”

Howard wanted nothing to do with the subject when asked about it following Tuesday’s practice at Joe Louis Arena.

“They can do whatever they want,” he said. “They’re not going to take me off my game.”

Throughout the first two games, Sharks players have charged to the Wings’ crease, and with a quick stop just in front of Howard, their skates send ice up into the air, and into the goaltender’s face and down his jersey.

The lone penalty from the spraying issue came in Game 1, when Howard jumped to his skates and punched Pavelski midway through the second period. Both players were assessed two-minute roughing minors.

Wings coach Mike Babcock said that he has informed his players to look past the Sharks’ attempts, citing that it general manager Ken Holland is on the case.

“I told our players today that we have a general manager and he looks after that stuff,” Babcock said. “We have to forget about being distracted, be disciplined and be determined.”.

well fuck, there goes my argument why the wings are sucking....

[Deader2818]

HMMM interesting. This the first time that not only the Preds made it to the 2nd round, but the Memphis Grizzlies made it to the 2nd round for the first time as well. MORE interesting, is the Preds are facing the Canucks which is where the Grizzlies moved form.

Bored, sorry, lol.

[Thoronas]

HMMM interesting. This the first time that not only the Preds made it to the 2nd round, but the Memphis Grizzlies made it to the 2nd round for the first time as well. MORE interesting, is the Preds are facing the Canucks which is where the Grizzlies moved form.

Bored, sorry, lol.

Even better is the Grizzlies are playing what was once the Seattle Supersonics. Basketball equivalent of Coyotes playing the Stars.

[Penthesilea]

Don't get me wrong, I think they have great def even if Thomas looks lucky on most plays he has to be good because luck alone wouldn't win him all these games. And they have a pretty decent first 2 lines even though they haven't been as productive as in the reg. season.

But the 4th line, really? rofl

Their defense is mediocre.

http://www.broadstreethockey.com/201...se-is-beatable

Spoiler: show

Was the Boston defense really any good this year?

We know Chara is awesome, and his impact in the post-season is even larger as his ice time creeps up towards 30 minutes a game. And the Bruins were second in the league in goals against this year, so it's easy to look at that and assume the defense played great.

But it's really not that simple. You might have heard this mentioned once or twice at some point, but Tim Thomas had a reasonably good year this year. So we can't just point to a low goals against and assume the defense was great, for exactly the same reason we can't just use GAA to rate goalies. The goalie and the defense both play a role in determining how many goals get scored. After the jump, I'll tease out who deserves the lion's share of the credit here.



Let's start with the simplest view: let's say the defense's job is to prevent shots and the goalie's job is to stop them. So we'll measure the goalie by save percentage and the defense by shots against per game.

Thomas had a record-breaking save percentage of .938 this year. The league average was .913, so over the 1811 shots that Thomas saw this year, a goalie with an average save percentage would have allowed 46 more goals. Thomas had 56 games' worth of ice time, so he saved the team 0.82 goals per game when he played.

The Bruins gave up 32.7 shots on goal per game, second-most in the league. The league average was 30.4, and the extra 2.3 shots cost the team 0.2 goals per game. The same was also true at even strength, so this isn't just an effect of how many penalties they took.

So in the simplistic view, the Boston defense was one of the worst in the league, but a record-breaking goaltending performance more than overcame that to result in a better-than-average goals against. What could we be missing here?

The answer everyone jumps to next is that a defense can be very good by keeping all of the shots far away and that a lot of non-dangerous shots would give us the wrong impression -- Thomas would look like he was saving the day on the stat sheet, when really the defense was making his job easy. In fact, this is exactly the claim some Boston fans made recently when I expressed skepticism about their defense, that the defense packs down low and gives up lots of shots from the outside, but their conservative positioning clears rebounds quickly and doesn't allow as many shots from in close as most teams do.

Well, we can check on that. The play-by-play that the NHL provides records distances for every shot. I've parsed the data for the Flyers, Bruins, and Sabres, so we can see how they compare in this regard. Here's how the three teams compare in their number of shots on goal allowed at 5-on-5 from various distances:

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/60...Buf_medium.jpg

We're not comparing Boston to teams that ran really tough defensive systems; Philadelphia and Buffalo ranked 13th/17th in SOG allowed and 11th/18th in goals allowed. Yet the only distance where Boston didn't allow the most shots on goal was from 70+ feet. In other words, not only did they allow more shots than either of the other two teams, but a higher proportion of those shots came from in close.

This leaves two arguments for someone who wants to say that Boston's defense played well this year.

They could argue rink bias -- some teams award shots more easily than others, which could have inflated the total. We can check that with home/away splits:
http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/60...oad_medium.jpg



This chart is the combined shots for both teams, to minimize any effect of home ice advantage. If anything, it looks like the Boston rink tends to overcount the point shots, so the fraction of shots from the outside is probably even smaller than indicated in the first plot.

That leaves just one argument left for someone who wants to argue that the Boston defense has played well this year: shot quality. It's a very natural tendency and everyone goes there -- there's no question that some shots are more dangerous than others from the same spot, and so you want to believe that a certain system results in more high-quality shots than another. And yet even though legions of people have put this argument forth and dozens have tried to find evidence that such a system exists, nobody ever has.

I can only conclude that the Boston defense just hasn't been very good this year -- they're giving up lots of shots, from fairly close in, and only Thomas' miracle season has bailed them out. With the top pairing playing half the game in the playoffs, things might be a little different, but I have to believe the Flyers can continue to get pucks on net and that some will go in. Shore up the horrific defensive breakdowns in their own end from game 1 and they can take this.

[Sepukku]

Their defense is mediocre.

Then why aren't you winning?

[Penthesilea]

The aforementioned Tim Thomas?

Because reading seems tough for you. Goalies jobs are to stop SOG, the defenses job is to prevent SOG.

Boston is below average in allowing SOG. Tim Thomas is absurd in that he's stopping nearly 94% of them.

[aurik]

Not enough Prongers on the ice.

[Deader2818]

I always consider the goaltending to be part of the defense. I dunno, I cant think of many successful goalies that got far with mediocre defense.

[BadKarma]

I always consider the goaltending to be part of the defense. I dunno, I cant think of many successful goalies that got far with mediocre defense.

The new york lundqvists made the playoffs.

Totally sent from a PC. Srsly